Featured Writers

I nod hello to the barista and settle into my usual seat. I’m about to pull out my book when I see two people signing. They are sitting two tables over. I can’t help but really look at them. Their hands are flying up and down, touching cheeks, chins, ears, elbows. They are conversing rapidly; they are exchanging smiles.

I keep my hands under the table; they thrash about like freshly hooked fish. They can’t speak. I dig my nails into my palms to punish them.

The Oxford definition of ‘access’ is ‘the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place’.

A definition that breeds triviality. A meaning that surpasses physicality. It is more than sizing up a space. A restricted movement from place to place. It is a negotiation. A validation of a way through. Ears that can hear and make improvement. Minds that can recognise and cause change. Hearts that will accept unconditionally.

Access for me is a dream of weightlessness. An easy way from one place to the next.

The Oxford definition of access is ‘the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place'.

A definition that breeds triviality. A meaning that surpasses physicality. It is more than sizing up a space. A restricted movement from place to place. It is a negotiation. A validation of a way through. Ears that can hear and make improvement. Minds that can recognise and cause change. Hearts that will accept unconditionally.

Access for me is a dream of weightlessness. An easy way from one place to the next.

Ally means partner, or so I’ve heard. Someone who cares, who'll be there when the walls fall down. Ally is an action, an alliance you build, not something you identify as. Ally is meant to mean something, like a marriage, because that's how marriage started too.

Prologue: One Year Ago

“There are too many ghouls in the forest. We need you,” said Kolya.

The poor kid was exhausted and pale. Silvie gave him a second fruit bun, figuring there was no harm in a little petty crime. The buns weren’t selling; besides, it was depressingly likely that she’d have to resign from the bakery before the day was over.

Earlier this year, Tania Cañas, Arts Director at RISE Refugee in Melbourne, wrote an article 'Diversity is a White Word’ that subsequently exploded on social media, igniting discussion across the arts and in literary journals (Koubaroulis, 2017; Aranjuez, 2017; Iyer, 2017).

Today I meet writer Rajith Savanadasa at the Malthouse Theatre. It’s afternoon tea time, and the Malthouse café is busy with actors letting off steam and directors reading over their notes. A small school group climbs up and down the staircase, sparrows flit in and out through the open windows; the place is a hive of activity. Suddenly alighting from the staircase is Rajith, content and calm. He buys a cup of coffee and we sit in the middle of the crowd to chat.

“It devastated me,” says Sofie Laguna of Nick Broomfield’s film about American serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who was convicted of killing six men and executed by lethal injection in 2002. It wasn’t, however, the obvious discomfort such a film would provoke that disturbed Laguna, instead it was the grim, desperate, dreadful childhood that Aileen endured.

Mentorships at Writers Victoria

Entries are now open for The Ada Cambridge Writing Prizes (The Adas). For the first time, submissions for prose and poetry are open to all writers who live in Victoria. The Young Ada Short Story Prize remains open to 14-18-year-olds, who live, study or work in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Winners...